Microsoft Combines Its Startup Programs Under One Roof

There’s no shortage of corporate venture capital efforts, and now Microsoft is uniting several of its startup efforts into one.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced it is creating Microsoft Ventures, a fusion and expansion of company programs to provide startups with technology expertise, investment money and other help. The company didn’t say how much money Microsoft Ventures had to invest.

Microsoft previously had at least two significant programs with a mandate to invest in or otherwise assist young companies.

Microsoft for several years has supported developers with a program called BizSpark that offers startups engineering expertise, free or very low cost computing tools, marketing and more. The company last year also launched the Bing Fund, which has invested in emerging companies such as digital media-and-advertising firm Selectable Media and Buddy Platform, which offers back-end tools to help developers track usage of their apps.

Rahul Sood, the general manager of Microsoft Ventures, said in a blog post that the new Microsoft Ventures will include BizSpark, an accelerator program (think a three-to-six month startup bootcamp), and an evolution of the Bing Fund to provide seed funding to young companies.

A former executive with PC-videogame company Voodoo, Sood was hired at Microsoft more than two years ago, and as general manager of the Bing Fund he’s won raves from some startups for focusing less on what technology Microsoft can scoop up to further the company’s strategy and more on backing promising areas of technology for their own stake.

In an interview, Sood said as Microsoft’s business groups work more closely together, the company wanted a similar unification of its programs with entrepreneurs. “We decided that we needed to come together for startups as well,” Sood said.

Some startups are suspicious of Microsoft because of perceptions the company is out to co-opt emerging technologies, but Sood said the company is seeking to improve its image and pitch to developers. He cited Microsoft’s embrace of open source tools for developers, and the emergence of Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform, Azure, as an appealing platform for young companies.

“We want people to see that Microsoft does care and really improve the perception we have in the startup space,” Sood said.